The Young Man and the World eBook

All of this means that the two indispensable requisites
of speaking are, first, to have something to say,
and, second, to say it as though you mean it.
Of course one cannot have something really to say—­a
lesson to teach, a message to deliver—­every
fifteen minutes. Very well, then; until one does
have something to say, let one hold one’s peace.

Carlyle’s idea is correct. He thought that
no man has the right to speak until what he has to
say is so ripe with meaning, and the season for his
saying it is so compelling, that what he says will
result in a deed—­a thing accomplished now
or afterwhile. In the prophetic old Scotchman’s
iron philosophy there was no room for anything but
deeds.

If such instruction is needed; if a great movement
requires the forming and constructive word to interpret
it and give it direction; if a movement in a wrong
direction needs halting and turning to its proper
course; if a cause needs pleading; if a law needs
interpretation; if anything really needs to be said—­the
occasion for the orator, in the large sense of that
word, has arrived. Therefore when he speaks “the
common people will hear him gladly”; they will
hear him because he teaches, and does it “as
one having authority.”

Whenever a speaker fails to make his audience forget
voice, gesture, and even the speaker himself; whenever
he fails to make the listeners conscious only of the
living truth he utters, he has failed in his speech
itself, which then has no other reason for having been
delivered than a play or any other form of entertainment.

Very few of the great orators have had loud voices,
or, if they did have them, they did not employ them.
I am told that Wendell Phillips always spoke in a
conversational tone, and yet he was able to make an
audience of many thousands hear distinctly; and Phillips
was one of the greatest speakers America has produced.

It is probable that no man ever lived who had a more
sensuous effect upon his hearers than Ingersoll.
In a literal and a physical sense he charmed them.
I never heard him talk in a loud voice. There
was no “bell-like” quality. It was
not an “organ-like” voice.

The greatest feat of modern speech, in its immediate
effect, was Henry Ward Beecher’s speech to the
Liverpool mob. A gentleman who heard that speech
told me that, notwithstanding the pandemonium that
reigned around him, Beecher did not shout, nor speak
at the top of his voice, a single time during that
terrible four hours.

It is true that AEschines spoke of Demosthenes’
delivery of his “Oration on the Crown”
as having the ferocity of a wild beast. I do
not see how that can be, however, because Demosthenes
selected Isaeus as his teacher for the reason that
Isaeus was “business-like” in method.

This, however, is common to the voices of nearly all
great speakers; they have a peculiar power of penetration
that carries them much farther than the shout and
halloo of the loudest-voiced person. They have,
too, a singularly touching and tender quality, which,
in a sensuous way, captivates and holds the hearers.
James Whitcomb Riley has this quality in his voice
when reciting. Edwin Booth had it. All great
actors have it. Every true orator has it.
It touches you strangely, thrills you, affects you
much as music does.